@IRememberMitmoo thanks for starting the thread.
I’m still haunted by my experience 8 years on. It’s a very particular kind of pain to work up the sheer nerve and courage to leave an abusive relationship - only to find you’re powerless to protect your children, and re-traumatised in the most humiliating way possible, gas lit on a public “stage.”
The spin and the characterisation and subjective and misogynist rhetoric were truly galling.
Definitely left me with PTSD. It was dehumanising. I read about a term coined I think in the US called Legal Abuse Syndrome. The courts I found were simply a vehicle for further abuse - but the most insidious and cruel kind. When my ex could no longer bully me directly himself, he just paid other people to.
I felt judged not only for all my shortcomings as a mother and person, but felt that being “me” was wrong, unworthy, and contemptuous.
I remember my solicitor describing it as “litigation trench warfare” and “they” (the other side) being “out to get me.”
I felt throughout like I was opening my mouth and speaking - but no sound was coming out. My voice was muted. I could not advocate for my children who all 3 were babies at the time.
There was one particular social worker, an “independent” social worker - although my ex paid her, so she was his client, and they sat eating lunch together at court - whose long term impact through her decision making will never leave me. I “see” her face in crowds or random supermarkets - not her of course, but I’m haunted by that person’s decision making and the power it placed into the hands of my ex - a man so deeply cruel that I was desperate enough to pack up and leave with 3 infants under the age of 3 and no support and nowhere to go.
I was judged in a way that was entirely subjective - judged on a cultural and stylistic level for certain - the SW identified more with my ex, his money and power and status.
It was brutal, painful, dehumanising and shocking.
I sadly relate to all you say. Ruins your experience of motherhood fully. Even 8 years on, I still think of things with the anxiety and trepidation of “how could that be spun in court” and my ex has used his “success” via the court system as a tool to disempower me with.
Its sad and it’s a long game - I end up counting down the years of my kids’ childhoods until such time as they’ll be big enough and strong enough to vote with their feet and no longer live under the arbitrary decision making of people that will never cast eyes on them.
I remember the strange, disconnected feeling of the judge saying my daughter’s name - and yet she had never (and would never) meet her, yet there the judge was - making decisions based on hearsay and a person who has a lot more objective resources, money and power than another.
I was mocked by the other side also. Mocked for trying to make my voice heard - the more I was anxious - the more I would try. I was ridiculed when I responded so a solicitors letter one night at midnight (I was alone with 1 year old twins and a 3 year old.) I remember being astounded at how deeply unethical it felt - to bully and mock and essentially re-victimise a woman who has dredged up all the courage she can muster to leave domestic abuse.
It almost makes you feel leaving was never worth it. Sad. I do feel it was worth it. But there’s untold damage. Damage if you stay - and damage if you leave.
Keep going to all the other posters who are members of this sad club and thanks again for posting @IRememberMitmoo - a warm hug to you from another who can relate x